Adding a new disk to the same music collection possible?

[al-zoir]

Re: Adding a new disk to the same music collection possible?

PS Forgot to mention how glad I am for using the beta version, which is obviously superior to the previous one. Thank you for telling me.

[donny]

Re: Adding a new disk to the same music collection possible?

Hi, I read the thread, and I will try to add some more help, though not sure if it will really be helpfull

the problem with multiple drives - I would recomend not using the arrange function if you want a simple and secure solution. nothing else really comes to mind. The thing that xoas suggested is pretty sure to work. 2 mmcs (col1, col2), separate on 2 drives, arranged on 2 drives. but as he said unitying these two would make a third collection (coluni), and any changes in col1 or col2 would not reflect on the coluni. and no changes on coluni would be reflected on col1 or col2.
I just tried combining mmcs, and it really does create the new collection as described above.
maybe if you would keep col1 and col2 and change only them, and recreate coluni when needed. but I think that this is maybe too much work.

so I would recomend not using the arrange function in mmc. maybe if you have the paid version (power pack) of the old dmc(music converter) R11 that works correctly with dAP (audio player), you could use the "Arrange music codec" before adding to the library.

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/legacy/codec-central-legacy.htm

as far as skins go - I didn't know about that glitch, as far as I know, dap is not unicode - it stores the everything in the mmc in ascii. though I am maybe wrong.
but I did test with my files that have non-english alphabet signs, and indeed they do display correctly in some skins and not in others. I find no pattern in this. there are some very old skins that work as should, and some new that don't. The skins are also by different authors, including me...
in my version of the Beyond skin (local), on one part of the skin it displays correctly while on other it doues not...
maybe I'll dig a bit more about this, but for now it just seems you will have to pick skins that do this correctly.
I never noticed this before, since I don't really have much tracks where this is evident.

[xoas]

Re: Adding a new disk to the same music collection possible?

As for backing up, I cannot use for everything disc C of the laptop, because it's full. All the programs go always there, resulting in only 4.35 GB empty space.

This should not be a problem. Try to imagine that your computer is a library of music files and that MMC is like a magical card file that allows you to see all the tracks that are in the library and to access any you want instantaneously. The card file itself doesn't contain the tracks, it just lists the tracks that are in the library and how to access them in case you ask for them. So one way this is true is this: backing up your MMC does NOT involve backing up all your tracks, it only involves backing up the card file. If you follow the directions to locate your MMC you should see it being many Mb large, perhaps even 100 Mb or more for an extremely large collection. But it should certainly fit easily somewhere where you can access it if you need to.

But when you arrange the collections don't you move all the songs to the disc where the collection has its mp3s? (which is exactly what iI am afraid of?)

Likewise, imagine that your various drives are like different floors or different branches of a large library. If you add more floors to the library and then store more tracks on the new floor, you can still add these tracks to your card file (MMC) without having to move MMC or the tracks.

I know of course that you can add songs from another drive, without arranging them, but this way you cannot compare anything, or if you do, it is much more difficult. Never thought though to make two or more MMCs and arrange them in the, so called, 'main MMC', but ,really, have you tested it, or is it just an idea?

I have two ways of looking at this question of arranging. One is to point out that as long as you have your tag information in order MMC is going to arrange everything in order regardless of where it is physically stored on your computer. If you rip the odd numbered tracks from an album to one drive and the even numbered tracks to a second drive, they are still going to show up in MMC just the same as if they were stored on the same drive. Your magical card file will make your music library look well-organized even if tracks are scattered about every which way (just as long as the card file/MMC knows where each track is at).

The other way of looking at this is that even though MMC will create an order for your collection based on tag information regardless of how well-organized your collection may be, that there are some important advantages to having your music collection physically well-organized. While the Arrange Music feature in dAP is obviously a powerful tool for doing this, I agree with Donny's post above that it is not likely to be the right tool for you in your situation and there are alternatives. If you use dBpoweramp Music Converter (dMC) to rip tracks, and if you have a registered version of dMC, you can use the Arrange Tracks utility codec (which is also available for dMC r12+/r13) and it will do pretty much the same as the Arrange Music feature in dAP. Again, arrange the tracks on your drive before you add them to your MMC.

Also, if you have dMC r11.5 or earlier with (I believe) the Power Pack, or a reference version of dMC r12+/r13 you can use the dynamic naming feature to set up your naming convention and any version of dMC should allow you to specify the drive and location you want your tracks ripped to. If you use some other ripping or converting program, it probably has its own way of adding and organizing tracks which is also OK.

As for the last bit, I have worked with multiple MMCs but I have not personally tried what I suggested in terms of having separate MMCs for each drive and a master MMC that would encompass the whole collection. If you tried this you would still have all of the MMCs on one drive (the one with dAP in it). But although I am confident that a user could do this, I would have to agree with Donny that it really is not a good idea because of the difficulties in keeping the separate MMCs all up to date and coordinated and because there are simpler means for accomplishing the same goal.

To prove to yourself how all this works, try ripping some tracks to your new drive, organize them (maybe trying out the dMC Arrange Tracks utility codec) and then add them to MMC. Remember that this will not move the new tracks to your other drive. I think you will see that it is really pretty simple once you get used to it.

Now if you have tracks in MMC that you want to move to a different location, then we can talk about that later.

Best wishes,
Bill

[al-zoir]

Re: Adding a new disk to the same music collection possible?

I am getting enthusiastic about it all. Never thought I could find m8s showing such a wellcoming interest to an eternal newbie. Because truth is I never had the time to read and put in practice all the possibilities this exciting program has to offer, partly because I often simply cannot understand what it's all about. For instance, I never got into understanding and functioning of 'power pack', because I just thought that it's out of my interests.

So, yes I have the r11 of the dMC with the po wer pack and, thanks to xoas, dap r3 beta6, also cd writer r2 (which I don't use because it has not the function of writing the titles on the CD). What is of importance is that, besides ripping my own CDs, the most of the tracks I am storing is a product of editing satellite radio broadcasts, mostly not easy to find, a fact that makes them unique and precious.

What I do then is record the broadcast and afterwards, seperate the songs, cut out the speach, convert them with thd dMC to 256/48000 and simultanuously store them to a folder of my D disc (partition of the laptop's disc). Then I go to my MMC and add those tracks to it. Afterwards I use the 'arrange files' option, completing the 'genre' and every other detail I want to have in the ID tag, and arrange them in the folder, disc where my MMC lies. This way whatever song I already have in the MMC (of course with the same exactly title) stays out. So, when I go back to the folder on the D disc, I add the remained songs one-by-one to the MMC and compare them with the already existing file with the same name. I compare the quality of the sound and the length and I keep the best. Because of the nature of the tracks (radio broadcasts) it's obviously a function I can't afford to loose.

I promise to test your proposition as soon as I will be sure that I have nothing to loose. Because many times I have lost not the songs, never that, but elements of the ID tags (genre, song title, year of recording), which sometimes I find, other times not, when I open and search the second page of the ID tag. Are you saying that if I put the collection in my C disc, it will be more appropriate and solid? I don't know which things I could cut to find space in the C disc!!! You see all the programs go there, and I have that tendancy to download new programs all the time!

Thank you for the wonderful way you analysed the various things to the ignorant, but surely music lover! Imagine I never could manage to make a playlist, since it's really hard to use an explorer just by the name of the artists. I find it extremely difficult to make cds or fill out usb sticks for the car, since there is no way to find tracks by genre (if you want to use only hits of today, or greek or latin eg.) You cannot make playlists using just the collection, where it is easy to choose songs. By the way, when I want to move tracks to another folder, I always use the dMC, but till now using the convert to mp3 function. I saw now that also an 'arrange files' exists. Is there another way?

So now, you tell me to make 2 MMCs for each one of the two drives, both in the C drive (that, you say is of foundamental importance) and a third one (addind in it the two others) also in the C drive. Up to now I told you I make two backups for insurance to my D(partition of the laptop's disc) and G (external disc, carrying all the tracks in my MMC). But it seems the one in the laptop's disc is more accurate. But you say it has to be on C. (I'm repeating just to exclude the misunderstandings). And you say I should not use the arrange option, you mean of course in the final product, the MMC1+2. So, I will loose the option to compare the version and choose to keep the best. In the individual MMCs I can, of course, use the 'arrange' function, too.

I would add that it's a real honour to chat with you guys, with Donny also, creator of so many great things and skins (though, to speak the truth, I never could understand the function and utility of, the very beautiful indeed, 'QueMaster'. I also would express my curiosity on how he never tested his creations with his mother tangue (being neighbors and having the same strange, not latin, languages). Donny, don't you ever listen to serbian music, or are you making the id tags in seblish (I don't know if there is such a term, we here use Greeklish for writing Greek with English alphabet characters)

Owe!! I thing so far for now. Hope don't make you tired. Always thanks for your interest.

[xoas]

Re: Adding a new disk to the same music collection possible?

So now, you tell me to make 2 MMCs for each one of the two drives, both in the C drive (that, you say is of foundamental importance) and a third one (addind in it the two others) also in the C drive. Up to now I told you I make two backups for insurance to my D(partition of the laptop's disc) and G (external disc, carrying all the tracks in my MMC).

Although I suggested this possibility at first, I think that this is NOT a good idea. I would stick with one MMC and a backup copy of that MMC (that you periodically update since if you backup your MMC and then add more tracks to it, the copy will not have those extra tracks).

Remember that backing up the MMC is NOT the same as backing up your audio files. It is only backing up your list of files in your collection and where they can be found on your computer.

Your backup MMC can be anywhere on your computer (or even on a removable drive, your laptop or on data CD) so long as you can find it and get it back into the same folder as dAP when and if you need it. I don't think that dAP can actually do anything with an MMC that is not in the same folder as dAP.

I will give some more thought to what you are doing and make more suggestions on your other issues later on.

Best wishes,
Bill

[al-zoir]

Re: Adding a new disk to the same music collection possible?

So, the illusion of a possible solution has fainted!!! I wonder what changed your mind. And the time passes and the MMC folder-disc gets bigger, making the use of the disc more difficult (to work smooth you have to have some empty space, usually 1/4, I was told, and now I am close to 1/10).

You did not answer if it is possible to move massily (is there such a term?) tracks with the same genre, so that I could move jazz and christmas music to the new folder, since my main aim is to listen to my MMC in the random mode.

Hope I don't become a bore with my endless thanks but how else could I express my gratitude to your unexpected valuable help? Waiting forward for that bright idea, which will definetely solve my problem.:smile2::smile2::smile2:

[xoas]

Re: Adding a new disk to the same music collection possible?

There are at least 2 things that occur to me that would help what you are trying to do.

The new idea is this:
Since your new drive is so large, it should easily hold all of your music tracks. So take MMC and use the Arrange Music feature to transfer ALL of your music files (the ones that have been added to MMC) to your new drive. dAP and MMC will continue to be on your C:/ drive but the music files thrmselves will be all organized and moved to a new home. This has the advantage of freeing up space on the drives that are short of space.

I would like to point out, however, that when I experimented with using the Arrange Music feature to move tracks this morning (my time), that some or all of your files may be duplicated (with one copy in the original location and one copy in the new location) and ALL of the older folder structure will be left behind (most should be empty). You will want to: 1. go back and remove the empty folders; 2. where you find files remaining in their original location you will want to check to make sure that a copy exists in your new location (you can do this in MMC where you will see both copies), and 3. you will want to remove the duplicated files from their original location and also to remove those duplicated tracks from MMC (you can streamline this by finding the File Name column within MMC and clicking on this, this will organize tracks by file name beginning with the drive, so any tracks remaining say on your C:/ drive will be grouped together simplifying the task of selecting them and right-click deleting from disc (instead of right-click and choose Remove-which simply removes the track from MMC, go Right-click, Advanced, Felete ** File(s) From Disc**-this will remove the selected files from MMC and from your computer at the same time-but be sure the file(s) in question have been copied to the new location before trying this as once the track has been deleted from the disc there is no way to get it back if it is the only copy).

And I did check, and you are right in assuming that you cannot select just a portion of MMC and use Arrange Music to move and organize just those tracks-it is going to move the whole thing. But if you are using MMC Arrange Music to move and organize your files, you could create a custom file structure that would create a folder structure based first on genre and then on variables such as album, artist, and/or track.


The other option would be to keep your curent tracks where they are and to add new tracks to your new drive. Use Music Converter to arrange your files and then add them to MMC. So long as MMC knows where the files are located it can and will access them even if they are on a different drive than the one MMC is physically located in. Then you can set Music Converter to add tracks to your new drive as you convert them, there is also an option within Music Converter (it may be a Power Pack feature or not) that would have Music Converter automatically add new tracks to your MMC (I believe the option is Add to dAP). You can also set MMC to automatically look for and add new music files to MMC from your new target drive and root folder therein (to avoid having it add tracks in process or any back-up or duplicated audio files). This is less potentially messy than the first option in the sense that you don't have to worry about confirming that all tracks have been moved before deleting those files that were left in the original location. From this standpoint, I believe that this option should work better for you.

This second method does have one drawback and that has to do with the difficulties you may encounter with trying to keep track of the various files that you have. Within MMC everything will be orderly but it may be difficult to distinguish between your recorded files, the files that are in the process of being split into separate tracks and having tag information added, the files you have added to MMC, backups of the files that you have added to MMC, and finished new duplicate tracks that you want to compare with the versions in MMC. But I am sure you already have some type of system in place that can be tweaked to accomplish this.

So there are at least 2 "solutions", each with their own advantages and drawbacks.

Best wishes,
Bill

[al-zoir]

Re: Adding a new disk to the same music collection possible?

Grosso modo, I agree that it's a brillant idea. Only give me time to read it carefully and understand it well some other time and not today, cause I already have a fever because of the operation I have had yesterday getting one backtooth out. Now, it's all blurred to me. Thanks for your help.

[donny]

Re: Adding a new disk to the same music collection possible?

backtooth operation is one of the modern lifes "beauties". I had one, though it all went almost as good as it could have. though it was a pretty big tooth they say.

on topic:
1. the fonts
It seems it has to do with the selection of the fonts in the skin. so for instance where it is "MS Sans Serif" it works correctly, and where it is "Arial" (practicaly the same looking, if not the same!) it shows weird signs. So maybe some skins could be rebuilt or something...
1a. my usage of national signs - as you may know in Serbia we use both cyrillic and latin letters, so songs tend to be written in latin letters, and most of the special signs tend to be written in their "regular" latin counter part (i.e. ć -> c), so that is the status of many of my songs. There are also nicely tagged songs, but it shows that some of the signs display correctly anyway, such as "š", while just some (and may I say fortunately rarer) have problems ("č").

2. mmc
if your main problem is comparing song versions, then I think you could just probably add both versions to the mmc, no matter where they are, they should appear one next to the other if they are same "artist - title". If they are same by some other tag, then use the sorting options in mmc (click on a column name).

2a. about selecting songs for players etc
do you use "Selective play"? see the help files, and play with it a bit if you don't know what it does. and then see the option in mmc: click on the Collection button on top, and select "Random selector". it can select a bunch of random songs based on the criteria in "selective play". the amount of songs can be limited by the joined length.

3.QueMaster - it should be explained in the help files (availabel both online and local when installed). Do you use the "Enque" function? When you enque several files you can reorder them in QueMaster. There are some more functions to it, but this is the main.

end post
anyway glad we can help. as far as I remeber this forum has been always a welcoming place for newbie users, and there were always people willing to help.

[al-zoir]

Re: Adding a new disk to the same music collection possible?

Answer for Donny (thanking for the compassion for my pain, it's almost over)

1. I did not know that in your country you use the latin alphabet in everyday use, hope you'll work a little bit on the subject and find a solution for me and our friends from China, Lapan, Arabic countries, Israel etc...
2. The way I do it is easier because I empty the folder with my new recordings to the MMC and my doudle recordings do not pass to MMC bt stay in the folder. So I come back to the folder and pass the remaining songs one-by-one to the MMC, where pressing on the track tub I bring the new and the already existing tracks together and compare them (even see the difference in length). If I use your way what should I compare? How could I remember which songs did I add recently? We're talking about 60000 songs and a job that I do every day (recording and adding new tracks). I am crazy, I tell you.
2a. Of course this is the way I am using the dap. But my problem is not playing back by genre, but making CDs or enriching ipod collections or even making playlists. You cannot easily find your latest 'New Hits' recordings, as an example since you are using the explorer, where you find the recordings arranged by the artists. The way I do it, and I think it takes too much time is to listen to 2008 new hits' recordings, and take a note of the titles, so later I can find them in the explorer. There is no way, or so I know, to make a playlist directly in the MMC. I tried, I couldn't.
3. No, I never use the enque function. I already told you I love the'random' mode.

Answer to xoas

Decided to make a new 'xmas and jazz' collection in the new drive and see what happens next. Think I know the way for massive transfer of files with the pressing of both 'ctrl' and 'arrow up' at the same time, which permits the grouping of files to delete (that I have already done) and transfer (I hope) using the dMC (arrange option).

Trying to find out where do I begin the construction of the new MMC, found out that I begin through the existing MMC, selectioning 'Collection'/'New'. I am afraid that if I do that each time I want to playback one MMC, I will have to 'load' the MMC in question, to playback it. Which means in and outs, so I am afraid I will loose details of the ID tags again. I know of course that I should do some backup first. But still, I am afraid.

But I also saw that there is also an option to 'Combine' Collections. I wonder, could that be the solution to my problem, according to your first 'schema', which you are not sure anymore of? I don't know when will I begin the experiments, one-by-one, little by little... I see you have no similar experiences, and I wonder some fellow I met last Easter that told me he had 100.000 songs in his which program was he using, unless he just had them saved not in a 'collection' like in our case. Anyway, the future calls... The solution is there..

[al-zoir]

Re: Adding a new disk to the same music collection possible?

Gentlemen,

After I did some tests, I am positive that this is, indeed, the solution to my problem, exactly the thing, you, xoas proposed in the beginning of this correspondance. Make a new music collection in the new disc and then combine my original collection to this new collection with the 'combine' option our master mind (Spoons, I think) has already provided for our needs, thank him for that. For the massive transfer of the files, I already told you the way. Maybe this is where I will do some searching to find a better way to make cds by the genre. Thanks anyway for the precious assistance. You have been great m8s.

[al-zoir]

Re: Adding a new disk to the same music collection possible?

I definitively did it. Transfered all my Christmas titles to the new driver, and can hear them also in my primary collection in combination with the new collection!! Wonderful, so I have solved the problem for now. Because, I'm thinking that you can combine only two collections at one time, and I'm afraid not with three. So this cannot be done with a third driver two. Tell me what you think, my friends.

[donny]

Re: Adding a new disk to the same music collection possible?

not sure I understood everything you said about the mmcs and you usage, but I can say a few things for sure
1. I tested the combine function already (see post #17) and I am not sure it works as you would like it... it just writes all data from mmc2 to the currently loaded mmc. as xoas explained this is a list of all the songs and the data you can see in the column. something like a spreadsheet with links to the music files, is that a good methaphor?
so if you combine an old collection with a new one on another drive, when you use the arrange function it will move all your files from the old drive to the new one.
test this on two small collections to see how it goes.

if you want to use the arrange function and have all the music in the same collection you have to keep it all in one drive. I am pretty sure of this.

2. if I understood right what you said about how you add and compare music to the collection, then I think I can't propose any new good solutions.

3. about the skins - here try the skin I uploaded with this post and tell me if it display right in the OnScreenControl, and wrong on the main skin.
activate the OSC by pressing the "corner" display on the main amp (top left button), and then when the "corner" part appears click on it's top third button.
but as said, dap doesn't supprot unicode, I think this just happens because you system is set up to handle unrecognized signs as greek, and some fonts don't (and can't) use the system settings.

[al-zoir]

Re: Adding a new disk to the same music collection possible?

For MMC, it goes like I want, only that each time I want to 'arrange' things I will have to load again each MMC separately. Of course, it is a pain in the ass, but I do not have any other solution.

The skin very nice, and indeed in it's mini version, I can read greek characters, but only there. So I come back to my favourite, which is the original, but in it's gold version.

[al-zoir]

Re: Adding a new disk to the same music collection possible?

I will add that I am using the r3 beta 6 version of dAP (from the Beta section of this forum), not the r2 "standard" version from the Products page. I would urge you to upgrade to the r3 beta version. It is more stable and powerful than the r2 version.

I hope this helps.

Best wishes,
Bill

I really have the best estimation for r3 beta 6 of dAP both for being stable and powerful, and maybe that was my excuse for not complaining so far for something that comes secondary and that I was not certain of. But is it common to everybody that using this version one looses the pop up idtag window possibility (approaching the song titles) which I did enjoy with my previous state and I seem to have lost now? Is there a remedy for gaining it back?